Book of Dreams
by Aleia15
Summary: Iruka's dreams come true. This is not a good thing.


Book of Dreams

1.

_The night is alight with fires, tinged orange and red, the darkness surrounding the forest and the village. The air is filled with shouts and screams, and a roar loud enough to make Iruka's ears hurt. There's chaos everywhere, people running away and towards whatever made that sound._

_Iruka doesn't know why he's there, doesn't want to; he wants to be in his house under his blanket, his mother's voice whispering in his ear until he falls asleep. He's terrified, so afraid his tiny frame is shaking, and wants to run away with the other children and civilians. He doesn't, keeps walking towards the centre of chaos, his tiny feet falling soundlessly on the grass. Nobody pays attention to him, as if they can't see him, and he reaches his destination unimpeded. _

_There, surrounded by flames and dead bodies is the cause of the noise. Iruka can see a huge beast, fur the colour of the fire surrounding them and eyes red and ruthless. It roars, and Iruka shudders, his small body shaking violently. A man rushes the beast, and it's sliced in two for his trouble by long and sharp claws, the gesture almost careless. _

_Iruka screams, terrified, and runs looking for his mom. __He can't see her at first, too many people moving around and too many more unmoving on the ground. Then the glint of gold catches his eyes, and Iruka moves towards it without thinking. The gold bracelet his mother always wears is on the ground, and not too far from it a woman lays dead, her hand extended as if trying to grab it. _

_Iruka doesn't need to see her face to know who she is. __He screams._

…

Iruka woke up screaming, his voice echoing inside his room and drowning the sound of steps approaching. His mother was by his side in a second, but Iruka couldn't see it, blinded by the tears and the images of the fire and destruction still playing inside his head.

"Iruka," she said, climbing on to his bed and hugging him tightly against her body. He clung to her, his tiny fist clutching her robe as if it was the only thing anchoring her to the world. "It's ok, it was just a dream."

"You died," he said through his tears, his voice cracking. "The monster killed you."

She rocked him, her voice soothing in his ear, her arms warm around him. "Shhh, it wasn't real. It was just a dream."

"But the monster-"

"They're not real, Iruka. Don't cry, we're not going anywhere. Sleep, I'll stay with you."

Iruka stopped crying after a while, his mother's voice and her presence next to him finally calming him enough to fall asleep again.

There were no monsters this time.

…

"You lied." Iruka said to the empty field, the scars of the battle still visible around him. He picked his mother's gold bracelet from the dirty ground and closed his hand around it, the links digging into the flesh of his palm. "The monsters are real."

…

2.

_"I'm sorry."_

_He knows the man on the ground clutching his stomach as if that would stem the flow of blood dripping between his fingers. He knows the boy he is now, and can recognize him easily in the man he will become. He can also recognize himself in the man kneeling next to him, hands checking frantically for more injuries. _

_"Don't talk, Kakashi." Iruka's voice sounds wrong, terrified. "Help is on the way."_

_Kakashi smiles and it looks more like a grimace of pain, blood staining his teeth. "I'm sorry," he says again. "I shouldn't have pushed. You knew, and I didn't listen-"_

_"_Don't,_" Iruka rasps, and he also sounds in pain though he doesn't seem to be injured. _

_Kakashi's breathing is getting shallower and more laboured with each passing second, and his uncovered eye is almost closed. "Iruka, I-"_

_"No, don't you fucking dare!" Iruka snarls, eyes narrowed. "Don't say it now. Hang on and you can say it as much as you want later. No. Open your eyes! Kakashi, open your eyes!"_

…

Iruka opened his eyes as if the command had been issued to him. He took a gulping breath, and then another, willing his heart to stop hammering against his ribcage as if trying to escape. Once he was calmer, he got up from the bed and went to the sink to get some water. His hand was shaking when he grabbed a glass, and he stared at it until it stilled.

It took him longer than usual to feel composed enough to get his black notebook, sit on his desk and write all the details he could remember. There were quite a few of them; he could always remember everything about those dreams with crystalline clarity.

It had taken Iruka a couple of years after his parent's death to fully comprehend the meaning of those dreams, and by then he was wary enough of going to sleep that the bags under his eyes, and the general air of exhaustion surrounding him, had been noticed by his teacher. Iruka had said he had nightmares about_ that night_, a common enough occurrence to garner sympathy but keep everyone from digging deeper. He might still be young, but Iruka was smart enough to know that saying his dreams came true, or more precisely, that he dreamt of events yet to happen, would get him the wrong kind of attention.

If anyone even believed him.

It was better this way. He had a notebook filled with details of the future, but it was too disjointed, too vague to be of use to anyone but him. Some of his dreams were little more than snatches of daily events, and others had too much weight for him to consider all the ramifications.

_You're still a chuunin at 25, and happy. Don't waste your time preparing for the jounin examination._

_Tsunade-sama will be Hokage. The Sandaime retires again?_

_You might get a dog. A pug?_

_Naruto hides close to the hut in the Northern Woods. Am I really going to be a teacher?_

_It rains on the day of the chuunin examination. I already know I pass it, is that cheating?_

He considered everything he had seen in the dream, everything he knew of what was and what might be, and made a last note on the book.

_Don't ever take a mission with Hatake Kakashi, he'll die._

…

3.

_Iruka's in the woods in the Northern side, chasing Naruto. That's not so unusual, as Naruto is always up to some mischief. The fact that Iruka is heavily injured and Naruto has a large scroll strapped on his back is. Naruto turns at his voice, and instead of stopping, he charges, hitting him with a solid shoulder in the stomach and making him crash on the ground. Naruto is not far behind, collapsing against a tree trunk as Iruka crouches and turns, his voice incredulous. "Why, Naruto?" and it could be betrayal in his expression, except Iruka is changing, his face suddenly replaced by that of Mizuki. "How did you know I wasn't Iruka?"_

_Naruto laughs, a puff of smoke revealing a tired and injured Iruka leaning against the tree. "I'm Iruka."_

_"I see," Mizuki says, and Iruka can see his own death in his eyes._

_Well, he had known it was coming, he's ready for it. _

…

Iruka woke up with the taste of bile in his mouth and nausea roiling in his gut. Not for the first time he wished for his cursed dreams to disappear, to never have one of them in his life. He had never seen anything in one of them that made his life better, and this last one just took the cake.

Mizuki was going to betray him. He didn't know when and he didn't know why, but the dream had left one thing pretty clear, and that was that Mizuki was going to try to kill him.

He couldn't believe it, didn't want to.

Perhaps the dreams were not a curse but a warning; there might be something he could do to prevent that outcome. He had never done anything before with the knowledge garnered from the dreams, but there had to be a reason he kept having them. He had tried to warn his parents, but he had been too young to know the difference between them and nightmares. Later he had learned to tell, but he had never been in a position to try and prevent them.

Now he was. And he was going to try.

He took a breath and got up from bed. He knew he should go to the Sandaime and explain everything, but he could prove nothing, he only had the certainty of his dreams becoming reality to work with. Besides, even if the Sandaime believed him, they would just grab Mizuki and try him for something that had not even happened yet.

Something that might not happen if Iruka played his cards correctly.

He had some clues to work with; Naruto had been in the dream, and he looked a bit older than he was now. Maybe a year, two tops. And whatever it was that happened to Mizuki hadn't started yet. The Mizuki he knew, the one he worked with and flirted at every available chance, was a friend; Iruka didn't want to believe he was going to betray everything they knew for no reason.

He made a note in his black book.

_Keep an eye on Mizuki. It's not too late._

He still had time.

…

Kakashi took a look at the man lying unconscious on the bed, his back a mess of scars beginning to heal. He probably didn't know how lucky he'd been to survive those wounds, but that wasn't what interested Kakashi.

The little black book in his hand was.

He had been sent to Iruka's house by the Sandaime to get some of Iruka's things and investigate quietly. The Sandaime had requested proof that Iruka hadn't had any knowledge of what Mizuki was up to, not that he really believed the man to have been involved in the betrayal. The council of elders, though, was making some noise about the coincidence of being Iruka the one to find Naruto. Especially considering how close he had been to Mizuki.

The council of elders were idiots, and one only had to look at Iruka's back to know it.

Kakashi had found nothing in Iruka's house to prove his innocence or guilt, which was good enough for the Sandaime. What he did find, hidden at the back of one of the drawers, was much more interesting. He had only opened the notebook to check Iruka wasn't as much of an idiot as to write down plans for treason, though what he had really been expecting was a little book of conquests. It was neither; it contained short descriptions of events and even shorter and pointed reminders. Kakashi had been about to close it and put it back in its place when a line caught his eye.

_Don't ever take a mission with Hatake Kakashi. He'll die._

It had been enough to make him read the entire thing from beginning to end, his mind reeling at the implications of what those reminders meant, and then rush to the hospital to get answers to the million questions crowding his mind.

He looked at Iruka, wounded and sleeping fitfully, and remembered the last entry in the book.

_Keep an eye on Mizuki. It's not too late._

Whatever it was that Iruka had tried, it had obviously failed. Now it was probably the wrong time to confront him about it. Kakashi left quietly, returning the notebook to Iruka's house and making a note to find as much information as he could about Umino Iruka.

…

4.

_Iruka's on his back, the blindfold covering his eyes the only clothing on him. There is someone else in the room, someone in the shadows watching him with hungry eyes as Iruka touches his own body, his hands moving slowly, teasingly, down his torso, pausing to pinch a nipple. There is a quiet gasp from the person in the shadows, and Iruka smiles. He keeps touching himself, excruciatingly slow, and his breath is ragged and shallow. He's aroused but avoiding to touch his cock, enjoying just the feel of his hands on his body and the other's gaze on his skin. _

_It seems to go on forever like this before Iruka's hand settles on his cock, and they both moan. Iruka raises his head a bit, turning in the direction of the sound, "Are you going to join, or am I going to have all the fun by myself?"_

…

Iruka woke up painfully aroused, something that was new when it came to one of his dreams. They normally ranged from the most ordinary and boring dreams to premonitions of death and destruction. It had taken him years, but Iruka had learned to live with them, and for the most part just ignore them. It wasn't as if he could change the future. He had tried, and failed, before. He had the scars on his back to prove it.

The black book where he used to write down the dreams was inside one of his drawers, forgotten and gathering dust.

He took care of his problem quickly, not dwelling in the images of the dream except to think that it looked like at some point he was going to get a fairly kinky lover. He wondered idly who could be. It didn't matter, whoever it was, Iruka would find out sooner or later.

He got ready for the day, the new term in the Academy was scheduled to start in two weeks, and in the meantime Iruka had picked double shift at the mission desk. He enjoyed the work, though it wasn't what he had envisioned himself doing when he was a kid. But it was better this way, if being a teacher and manning the desk kept him from being sent on missions there were fewer chances for some of his dreams to come to pass.

Maybe he hadn't resigned himself to be unable to change things as much as he believed.

…

Handing mission reports made Iruka feel an itch that teaching didn't. Some of them, the ones he was cleared enough to know, made him long to be in the field, use those painfully acquired skills of his for something more than demonstrations in class.

But he couldn't risk it, especially knowing whose life was at stake.

Iruka was a good shinobi, he knew that, he might not be a jounin, but he was good at what he did and he was more than capable to hold his end on a fight. But he wasn't irreplaceable.

Kakashi was.

That didn't help the wave of resentment Iruka felt every time he had to hand a mission to him. It was stupid, and irrational, and Iruka knew it. Kakashi had never done anything to him, had never treated him with anything but respect and friendliness, if one didn't count that ugly episode at the chuunin examination.

Truth be told, since the moment Team Seven had disbanded, Kakashi had become something of a permanent presence on the edge of Iruka's consciousness. If he wasn't on a mission or training, Kakashi usually hung out in the same places Iruka did. That wasn't so strange; Konoha wasn't that big of a village, and the shinobi liked familiar places with familiar faces around. It gave them some security when letting down their guard. Kakashi and Iruka had common friends and moved in the same circles, it stood to reason they met, more often than not, when going out.

And yet, Iruka was unable to shake off the feeling that it was more than a coincidence when he arrived at the bar after his shift and Kakashi was sitting at the table with Anko and Izumo.

He got his usual drink and took his place next to Anko, greeting all of them and taking the seat furthest away from Kakashi. It wasn't that he didn't like him, quite the contrary in fact. Kakashi was sarcastic and a bit of a bastard, and had a kind of self-depreciating humor Iruka liked very much. He was also a good listener, and could hold his liquor. And he was attractive, or at least what could be seen of him was compelling enough to make Iruka wish he could see more.

That was the reason he needed to stay away from him. It hadn't been said in the dream, and the years might have blurred the memory a bit, but Iruka could still remember the pain and desperation he had seen in his own face, and the hints that they were more than just friends. Iruka would protect both his heart and Kakashi's life by keeping his distance.

Pity Kakashi seemed determined to get as close to him as possible.

…

Iruka's presence at the bar was not surprise to Kakashi, nor the way he tried to stay as far away from him as he could. He had been expecting both, and had to hide a smile when he saw the looks Iruka darted at him as he made conversation with Anko on the other side of the table.

It had been almost a year since Kakashi had begun insinuating himself in Iruka's life, and he couldn't deny that it was more than simple curiosity what kept him interested in the apparently plain chuunin. It _had been_curiosity at first, that much was true; finding that book and seeing snippets of Konoha's past years, and probably of some yet to come, detailed there in black ink had made Kakashi take note of Umino Iruka, someone he had not looked at twice before that night in the hospital.

He had investigated a bit, and what he had found painted a very confusing picture. Iruka was a chuunin, a teacher, and he looked content being exactly that. His skills, though, were on the high side of the scale according to his aptitude test, and he could have made it, if not to jounin, at least to tokubetsu jounin easily. And yet he hadn't, he steered away from the field as much as he could without raising suspicion, and the only missions he took were when Kakashi was away on long term ones. For those, if it didn't clash with his teaching duties, Iruka usually volunteered.

He would have thought it was a coincidence, except for that note on Iruka's book.

Then the chuunin examinations happened, and Kakashi was more than just curious about the man with the fiery temper that had confronted him. It was unusual, as most people in Konoha feared him too much for them to speak against him. He had wanted to know more about him, and Anko's return from her mission and her tendency to drag everyone she liked out for drinks had provided Kakashi with the perfect excuse to be around him.

Not that he needed an excuse anymore, being around Iruka was something Kakashi liked very much. The man was fun, and snarky, and though not genius level, he was canny and intelligent. He was also incredibly hot, the uniform doing very little to conceal the powerful lines of his body, his smiling face something Kakashi never tired of looking at.

The distance he had imposed between them was infuriating, but Kakashi had an ace up his sleeve and was determined to use it.

"I know what you're thinking," Anko's voice snapped him out of his observation of Iruka, and Kakashi returned to the present to notice that she and Izumo has swapped seats, leaving her sitting by his side with two full beers.

He looked at her with a quirked eyebrow. "What am I thinking?"

"You like him," she tilted her head minutely towards Iruka. "We all know."

Kakashi didn't see a reason to deny it. "You're going to say he's not interested."

Anko laughed. "Oh, he definitely is interested. But he has walls higher than he Hokage Tower. You have your work cut out for you."

"If you're not going to warn me off him-" Kakashi trailed off as Anko stood up, signalling to Izumo who did the same.

"No, I'm here to tell you I'm taking Izumo back home because all this tension has got me horny," she passed one of the beers to Kakashi and the other to Iruka. "Enjoy the rest of the night, I know I will."

Kakashi laughed at Iruka's stunned face as his friends left them alone.

This was his chance.

…

He was going to kill Anko. And Izumo. They had set him up.

Iruka stared as his friends left the bar, leaving him alone with Kakashi, and considered whether it would be too rude to just follow them out. He didn't get the chance, though. As if Kakashi could read his mind, he moved from the seat he was occupying on the other side of the table and slid next to Iruka, effectively boxing him in.

He could leave, he wouldn't have made it past genin if he couldn't extract himself from a simple bar bench, but it would make it very clear he was avoiding Kakashi. With a sigh, Iruka took the beer and drank deeply from it.

"You seem uncomfortable, Sensei," Kakashi said, his voice amused and way closer than it should be.

"No," he lied. "It's just annoying that they left when I have just arrived." He pointedly not looked at Kakashi, keeping his eyes fixed on the table.

"I'll keep you company."

Iruka forced a smile and nodded, taking another drink. Maybe if he downed enough beer, he could make it through the evening. They stayed in silence for a long moment, Kakashi doing that neat trick where he gulped his drink before anyone had seen him remove his mask, and Iruka found himself wondering for the millionth time what would his face look under the mask.

Probably unfairly handsome, Kakashi seemed to have everything going for him, even if he chose to hide it.

"You know, Sensei," Kakashi broke the silence after a while, and Iruka turned to look at him. Kakashi's attention was focused on his face, and he blushed at the feeling of that sharp eye studying his face. "I'm not usually a subtle person, so I imagine you're aware of my interest," he said bluntly, and Iruka's blush deepened. He was. "And the thing is I'm getting mixed signals here. On one hand, you avoid being alone with me like the plague. On the other hand, you keep looking at me when we're here and act perfectly friendly if there are more people around."

"I-" he didn't know how to begin, or end, that sentence, so he just took another drink of the bottle.

"Is it because of the dreams?"

And promptly spit it out on the table.

"What did you just say?" Iruka rasped, once he had stopped coughing. He must have misheard that, there was no way Kakashi could have said what he believed he had heard.

Kakashi took a breath, as if he was steeling himself, and that was all the confirmation Iruka needed. "I found your book when I was investigating you after the incident with Mizuki," Kakashi said, not apologizing. Iruka should have known, he had even suspected that someone would have been sent to his house to investigate. But he had been cleared of all suspicion, and nothing appeared to have been disturbed when he had been released from the hospital. Of course, Kakashi was good enough to leave no evidence of his investigation. "I am familiar with the concept; a counsellor tried to make me write one when I was a kid, they were supposed to help me analyze my nightmares. Luckily, mine never became true."

"How did you know?" Iruka had been vague with the details, had never considered that anyone could interpret his notes without the full picture.

"I'm a genius."

"You haven't told anyone." It was a statement, if anyone knew about him, the least Iruka could expect was a visit to the Hokage tower.

"No."

"Why?"

"I was curious about you, but I didn't think you'd be a threat."

They stared at each other in silence, until it grew too heavy for Iruka to stand. He fidgeted, fumbling with his bottle and wishing to be anywhere else but there.

"Do they all come true?" Kakashi asked, curious, not a hint of judgment in his voice.

"Yes."

"And you've never told anyone."

Iruka took a drink to get the time to think about his answer. "I tried, the first time, to warn my parents. But I was too young, and I didn't know it was more than just a nightmare." The memories of that dream still made him feel almost sick with grief. If he had known then, maybe he could have done something. "When I learned to tell the difference, I had learned to fit in. I didn't want to be seen as strange. And I never saw anything useful in them, never had enough details. It was easy to convince myself that I didn't need to tell anyone, that it wouldn't make any difference if anyone knew. And then I was right. It didn't."

"Mizuki."

Iruka nodded. "You read everything?" he asked, remembering that dream about Kakashi's death. Here, with Kakashi sitting so close and looking at him with such and undisguised interest, Iruka wished that he had never dreamt about him. It would be easier to act on the attraction between them if he didn't know how it was going to end.

"Yeah," Kakashi admitted, and Iruka could swear there was a smile on his lips. "So you see, Iruka. I've always known I'll die in a mission, it doesn't worry me. It's part of my job. But it's made me wonder why you keep me at an arm's length. It's because of that dream, isn't it? You're already not taking missions if you can be paired up with me."

"You're too valuable an asset to risk, and I do love my work in the Academy." If he sometimes missed field work, he considered a small price to pay.

"I know that, but that doesn't explain why you wouldn't want to be with me _here_, especially if even your friends think you're interested. You saw more than what you wrote down, didn't you?"

"You don't understand-"

"I think I do." Kakashi stared seriously at him. "If your dreams always come true, then it's going to happen whatever you do. If they don't, you don't have anything to worry about."

Iruka shook his head, he could see where this was going, and it had a sense of finality he wasn't sure he liked. "You-"

"In your dream, by that time, we were more than friends, am I right?" Kakashi kept pushing, leaning so close to Iruka their bodies were almost touching. He nodded. "Iruka, if it's going to happen, no matter what you do, why fight it?"

…

The walk back to Iruka's house was made in silence, a sense of anticipation that had Kakashi's blood thrumming in his veins. He had taken a risk admitting about the book, Iruka could have shot him down and Kakashi would have had no more arguments in his favour.

But it had worked, and now they were in Iruka's living room, and Kakashi couldn't wait to get his mask down and kiss Iruka silly.

But first he had a request to make. There would come a time, if things progressed, where he could take down his mask. But it was not today.

"Would you allow me to cover your eyes?" he whispered in Iruka's ear, pressing against his back the moment the door was closed.

Iruka barked a laugh, his entire body shaking with it. "You were right, this was unavoidable." He said, turning in Kakashi's arms with his eyes closed. "I should have known."

Kakashi had no idea what he meant, but the invitation was clear. With a smile, he pulled his mask down and kissed Iruka.

…

5

_Iruka was wrong, it was not in a mission together,_ Kakashi thought, pressing a hand against the wound on his stomach, the flow of dark blood not slowing even a little bit. It was bad, he didn't need to be a medic-nin to know he was well and truly screwed, and the ironic thing was that his only thought on that was, _I'm glad. At least Iruka is not here._

It was supposed to be a simple mission, something that he was overqualified for, but the village was short staffed, and the courtier had been delighted to hear Hatake Kakashi was going to be his escort, he had even offered to double his pay for that. Thinking back, they should have smelled a rat at that point; nobody was ever that happy to be parted with their money, not even when they had money to spare.

The ambush, when it came, completely blindsided Kakashi, and he cursed himself for a fool, because they weren't even after the courtier. The Sound nin that surrounded them were there waiting for _him._

The fight had been fierce, the enemies were not unskilled by any means, and they outnumbered Kakashi, but he was used to fighting ridiculous odds and still coming on top. And he would this time, as well, were it not for the courtier, and Kakashi regretted not even bothering to learn his name. One should at least know the name of the person who killed him.

It didn't matter now, and it wasn't as if Kakashi could ask him anyway. He was as dead as the Sound nin, and Kakashi would be very embarrassed if anyone ever knew he had been killed by a civilian.

He panted harshly, still moving ahead. There was no way he could reach Konoha in his condition, it was still a day away and at the rate he was losing blood, Kakashi had an hour consciousness at best. And yet, he wasn't going to stop moving, he wasn't going to lie down and die.

This wasn't how Kakashi was supposed to die; Iruka wasn't there, he had left on a mission with Shizune a week before while Kakashi was still away on another one and according to his dream, they were in the same place when it happened. Iruka's dreams were always right, so Kakashi just needed to keep going and he'd probably find some help.

Kakashi wasn't going to die here, alone.

…

One of Iruka's favourite things about missions was the time spent travelling. He knew he probably was one of the few who enjoyed that, his friends complained enough about all the wasted time moving through the woods or the roads between villages, and Kakashi wasn't much better. For Iruka, who spent most of his time coped inside an office or a classroom, the green expanse of a forest or the openness of a road still had a lot of appeal.

Even when the mission was a boring one.

He knew Kakashi would roll his eye and insist that he took more interesting ones; it had been one of the few points they had never managed to agree on in the year they had been together. Iruka still couldn't believe they were together at all, that he had finally caved in and allowed Kakashi past his defences. Kakashi was right, though, if everything was going to pass the way Iruka believed, then there was no point denying themselves the good parts of it.

It was going to hurt more when it finally happened, as Iruka had no doubt it would, but he couldn't get himself to regret it. It had taken some time, but he had finally seen what Kakashi had been telling him all along; they were shinobi, death was the only certainty in their lives, they needed to enjoy life while they still had it.

As if to underscore his point, the smell of blood and death assaulted Iruka, snapping him out of his thoughts. He could see Shizune next to him breaking into a run, already heading in the direction it was coming from. The scene that greeted them was grisly enough; in a clearing not far from the road they found several bodies, the stench of blood almost overpowering. Shizune was the first one to snap into action, checking each of them for any sign of life.

She didn't need to bother; Iruka could tell there wasn't going to be any. He could piece together part of it from what he could see, the blood on the ground painting the picture of an uneven fight. "These shinobi came from Sound," Shizune said, turning one of the dead men and exposing his head band. She touched all of them, the last body belonging to a civilian. He was clutching a bloodied kunai in his hand, and had a big gaping hole in the middle of his chest. "What could have done this?" She asked aloud, looking around as if she expected to be attacked by the same thing that had killed the man.

Iruka knew that wasn't going to happen. He knew that attack, knew what could have caused it, and felt his stomach clenching in fear at the thought of it.

"That's a chiidori wound," he head himself saying as if from a distance, his eyes scanning the ground and finding the trail of blood moving away from the carnage. He was running before he had even finished speaking.

He ran for what felt like ages, eyes fixed on the ground as not to lose the trail. He could hear Shizune behind him, following him without even needing to ask, and he knew what he was going to find at the end of the trail, and he pushed on faster even as he knew he didn't want to get there.

If he never got there, then the dream would never come true, Kakashi didn't have to die.

Kakashi was slumped against a tree, his hand pressing against the wound in his stomach. It was still bleeding, which meant his heart was still beating, but he looked as if he was only holding on by sheer stubbornness, eyes closed and face pinched in a pained expression.

Iruka practically flew the last few yards separating them, falling to his knees next to him. "Kakashi!"

Kakashi's eye flew open, staring unfocused at Iruka. Then he recognized him and flinched, his expression turning into one of resigned acceptance. "Oh. Iruka. I'm sorry."

"Don't talk, Kakashi. Help is on the way." Shizune was right behind him, would probably take no longer than a minute to arrive. Iruka just needed to keep Kakashi conscious for a bit longer.

And maybe this was his dream, and maybe he couldn't change it. But he had been wrong, they hadn't been together in a mission, and if he had been wrong about that, then he could have been wrong about more things. He could have been wrong about how it ended.

"I'm sorry," Kakashi repeated, cutting through the panic. "I shouldn't have pushed. You knew, and I didn't listen-"

"_Don't,_" Kakashi was fading, and Iruka still couldn't hear Shizune's steps.

She couldn't be late. She couldn't.

"Iruka, I-"

"No, don't you fucking dare! Don't say it now. Hang on and you can say it as much as you want later. No. Open your eyes! Kakashi, open your eyes!" He took a breath and forced the panic down. "I didn't tell you about the dream I had last night. We're in Konoha, and Naruto is the Hokage. He's a good one, though he's as annoying as ever. And we're old, my hair's grey and yours is receding." The noise of Shizune approaching covered that of Kakashi's breaths, but Iruka didn't notice. He had his hands over Kakashi's, trying to stem the bleeding though he knew it was a useless gesture. Kakashi had already lost too much blood. "So you see, you can't die here, because I still have one dream that has to come true. All of the previous ones have become true, no matter what I did to prevent them. And so has this one, but I was wrong, I didn't see the end, I assumed I knew but I didn't. Is like you said, either all of them become true, or none of them should. And you need to hang in there for this new one to become true. Hold on for just a bit longer."

…

Kakashi woke up in the hospital, something that should have been normal if not for the fact that he hadn't expected to wake up at all. It was all blurred now, but he could remember the pain, and the effort to keep moving because as long as he did, there was some hope to find help. Then he had seen Iruka running in his direction, and he had thought _so I do die today._

But he hadn't.

He turned his head and saw Iruka sitting next to his bed, dark circles under his eyes and his clothes still rumpled and dirty. He was staring at Kakashi as if he couldn't believe he was still alive.

"Was it true?" Were the first words out of Kakashi's mouth, more like a rasp, and Iruka was by his side in a flash, a glass of water in his hand. He drank gratefully, feeling it soothe his throat and feeling a bit more human. "What you said in the woods? Was it true?"

Maybe it had been a dream, Iruka's voice in his ear telling him that he had been wrong, he had dreamt of them together again, years from now, when they were both wrinkled and old, and Kakashi wasn't allowed to die, because then that dream would never come true, and if that dream wasn't true, then no dream should be.

"It will be," Iruka answered, leaning forwards and brushing his lips against Kakashi's. "Now it will become true."

…


End file.
